anguish
by hitokiri-tokiya
Summary: A year after she is gone, within the graveyard that holds her eternally sleeping body...
1. anguish

(Hm, a reviewer asked me to write this, and I thought why not? A sequel to 'loss'. Don't know if it's any good, but anyway, here it is 'Cherie-san'. Sorry it took so long.  
  
Please tell me what you think. Yourushiku onegaishimasu. ^_^x)  
  
anguish  
  
The rain had started to fall but he took no notice. He continued to stay where he was, kneeling in front of her grave. Everyday he did this, not knowing of the many hours that pass by, or of the other people, or of the weather. Just kneeling there, thinking and reliving everything that had happened on that cold night, now a year ago on this day.  
  
Memories of her death.  
  
Of how cold she was in his embrace.  
  
Of meeting Raiha's merciless eyes.  
  
Of the burning hatred which had consumed him.  
  
Of blood dripping from the Ensui.  
  
He had killed that night, driven by that poisonous hatred he was. quite familiar with. For it was also hatred which had driven him in his pursuit of strength and in the mastery of the ice blade. The hatred that made him cold and isolated in his single-minded pursuit of vengeance.  
  
This hatred he now feels slowly turning towards the workings of Fate. How he had raged against It for taking away his only beloved sister, and now yet again for taking the only person who had been able to draw out his smile and touch his heart. Had It cursed him? A curse of emptiness, a curse of death to anyone whom he grows to love? If so, he gladly curses it back: a curse of understanding, that people may discern the plans It had laid out for them long before It has had a chance to enact them.  
  
Though that day would forever stand darkly apart in his store of memories, a part of it has been mercifully blurred in his mind. That was when he had carried her body, crying and stumbling through the night, his mind blank and his legs plodding on with no purpose. He felt a semblance of his sanity return when dawn broke, watching the beauty of the sunrise as he cradled her corpse in his arms. Their friends found them later that day. Their grief nearly equaled his own, and he remembers feeling a little better having others share his tears, and in the knowledge that he was not the only one who mourns deeply for her loss.  
  
And then, a warm touch broke him away from his recollections.  
  
Her touch.  
  
He felt her arms slowly encircling him from behind, felt the warmth of her body as it pressed against his. Her scent was suddenly in the air, sweetening each breath that he took.  
  
Quickly, heart racing with such intensity, he turned to look over his shoulder, fully expecting to meet her twinkling purple, azure-tinted eyes in one moment, seeing nothing but the gray, rainy air in the next. He stood up and looked all around him. Although his senses insisted he was alone, his heart kept telling him he was not. And there, as he stared intently before him, wasn't the rain faintly outlining a feminine shape as it fell?  
  
He murmured her name as he reached out towards where she was, but found only nothingness. And there a great and powerful sadness overtook him, as he realized how much he wanted to hold her in his arms but. he never will. Never. For she is dead, and nothing can bring the dead back to life.  
  
But. she's here! Standing right in front of him.  
  
But he could. Not. SEE HER!!!  
  
Why!? WHY!?! WHY CAN'T I SEE THE ONLY WOMAN I HAVE EVER LOVED!?!  
  
His body trembled with the sudden impotent rage that flooded through him, blurring all thought, overpowering all other emotions.  
  
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!  
  
His shout reverberated throughout the graveyard. But no one heard him. He was alone in that place of the dead.  
  
Why.  
  
His eyes widen as the answer comes to him. Of course. Why didn't I think of it sooner? The answer is so obvious.  
  
How can the living possibly see the dead?  
  
"I will be with you soon." he murmurs gently. And slowly, he draws out the Ensui.  
  
They found him the next day, lying on his side on top of her grave. His blood had already dried, and the waters that had formed the Ensui's merciless blade had long ago evaporated, or perhaps had already been drunk by the ground. The madougu lay seemingly innocent beside him, bearing no trace of his blood on it.  
  
There was a hole in his heart where his life had emptied, and he was quite dead.  
  
But he was smiling.  
  
THE END 


	2. soul

(Same story but different ending. Just curious which version readers will like better. Please R & R then, ne.  
  
Yorushiku onegaishimasu. ^_^x)  
  
soul  
  
The rain had started to fall but he took no notice. He continued to stay where he was, kneeling in front of her grave. Everyday he did this, not knowing of the many hours that pass by, or of the other people, or of the weather. Just kneeling there on the ground, thinking of and reliving everything that had happened on that cold night, now a year ago on this day.  
  
Memories of her death.  
  
Of how cold she was in his embrace.  
  
Of meeting Raiha's merciless eyes.  
  
Of the burning hatred which had consumed him.  
  
Of blood dripping from the Ensui.  
  
He had killed that night, driven by a poisonous hatred he was. quite familiar with. For it was also hatred which had driven him in his pursuit of strength and in the mastery of the ice blade. The hatred that made him cold and isolated in his single-minded pursuit of vengeance.  
  
This hatred he now feels slowly turning towards the workings of Fate. How he had raged against It for taking away his only beloved sister, and now yet again for taking the only person who had been able to draw out his smile and touch his heart. Had It cursed him? A curse of emptiness, a curse of death to anyone whom he grows to love? If so, he gladly curses It back: a curse of understanding, that people may discern the plans It had laid out for them long before It has had a chance to enact them.  
  
Though that day would forever stand darkly apart in his store of memories, a part of it has been mercifully blurred in his mind. That was when he had carried her body, crying and stumbling through the night, his mind blank and his legs plodding on with no purpose. He felt a semblance of his sanity return when dawn broke, watching the beauty of the sunrise as he cradled her corpse in his arms. Their friends found them later that day. Their grief nearly equaled his own, and he remembers feeling a little better having others share his tears, and in the knowledge that he was not the only one who mourns deeply for her loss.  
  
And then, a warm touch broke him away from his recollections.  
  
Her touch.  
  
He felt her arms slowly encircling him from behind, felt the warmth of her body as it pressed against his. Her scent was suddenly in the air, sweetening each breath that he took.  
  
Quickly, heart racing with such intensity, he turned to look over his shoulder, fully expecting to meet her twinkling purple, azure-tinted eyes in one moment, seeing nothing but the gray, rainy air in the next. He stood up and looked all around him. Although his senses insisted he was alone, his heart kept telling him he was not. And there, as he stared intently before him, wasn't the rain faintly outlining a feminine shape as it fell?  
  
He murmured her name as he reached out towards where he felt she was, but found nothing. A great and powerful sadness overtook him, as he realized how much he wanted to hold her in his arms but. he never will. Never. For she is dead, and nothing can bring the dead back to life.  
  
Once dead, you are dead forever.  
  
He continued to stand there, willing himself to see, willing his senses to open. But rooted as they were to the flesh, they were blind to her. He believed, he knew, with all his heart that her spirit had come to visit him. But he could not see. She was right there in front of him but he just could not see.  
  
The Ensui.  
  
Her voice, inside his mind. There was no mistaking that.  
  
He had not used the blade for a very long time, but he carried it always. In memory of his sister who had entrusted it to him, who had died unhesitatingly for him.  
  
The crystal ice blade he formed from the rain's water, and he thought he knew what she wanted from it.  
  
Show her to me again, please, even if it be only her shadow.  
  
The waters moved as he wished, moving sensuously, delicately, to form the shape of a woman. His skill with this ability is well honed, as it is a very effective one in battle. And so, quickly her form becomes visible.  
  
She was smiling.  
  
She was as he had always thought of her. the innocent yet playful look in her eyes, the warmly soft pink lips, the tomboyishly sexy body. The waters had gotten her perfect image, and he was not the least surprised to find his heart aching so intensely from seeing her seeming so alive right there in front of him.  
  
He knew she would have no voice, as she was but a mere shadow, and that knowledge nearly brought him to tears.  
  
For he just wants so much, so much, to hear her voice again.  
  
What is standing in front of you is as dead as she is now. Do not delude yourself. It is not her. the cold voice of his mind asserts.  
  
Yet he still moved forward, right into her arms and into her embrace.  
  
And in that moment, he realized he was embracing her soul.  
  
Somehow, the Ensui's water shadow had given her soul a physical reality, making it possible to be touched by the living and still it remains part of the world that is beyond our own.  
  
And what does one feel when one is able to embrace a soul?  
  
That is something he could not really answer in words, for the human mind seems unable to understand such a thing. Only in his heart did he fully know of all that he had seen and felt holding her living soul in his arms. For somehow, she had opened his flesh to the visions and feelings of things beyond this physical reality which we know.  
  
How does one tell of colors and shapes and suns and stars and flowers and worlds never imagined for the mere thought of their beauty would destroy the body in its vain struggles to contain the emotions they would evoke? And what of the emotions never felt by anyone, never dreamed of, never imagined? How could one possibly tell of those when even these emotions that we know seem quite unfathomable to us?  
  
The spell was broken when the shadow finally broke into its water droplets, and his eyes open wide and he gasps for breath as he feels the weight of this reality bring him back to earth.  
  
He was wet and he was cold, almost numb, but a faint smile touches his lips and his eyes are clear.  
  
He looks up into the still raining sky and murmurs.  
  
"I love you, too, Fuuko."  
  
THE END 


End file.
